Epilogue
Nora
I'd be lying if I said I've gotten used to every single flavor of darkness this Bratva has to offer.
For example—a week after that ambush, the backyard of the estate had severed heads hung up like Christmas ornaments. Colored lights were strung between them, tinsel draped over the fence posts. Dead center of the display sat Spada's head, the man who started the whole thing in the first place.
The Bratva lost twenty-five men that day. Dozens more spent weeks in the infirmary. But justice, in whatever twisted shape it takes in this world, was served.
Thankfully, turns out mafia wars are rare and few and far between.
I'd also be lying if I said I didn't eventually settle into that darkness. Get used to it. Contribute to it, even, in my own small ways, here and there. It's been five years since that day.
"Open your mouth, Ada, love." Seeing her this frail in the bed feels like a knife straight through the center of my chest every single time. "Please? For me?" I pull out my best pleading eyes, and she just shuts hers instead, refusing to look at me at all.
Cheater.
Fine. If we're playing dirty, I'm bringing out the big guns.
"Ada, you're upsetting the baby," I say, flat, deadpan, and her eyes fly open wide as saucers.
"That is not acceptable," she mutters, finally parting her lips for the spoon. The tumor's made eating hard for her these last few months, and surgery at her age is risky, according to every doctor we've dragged through this room. So it's chemo, rest, and prayers.
"Do you think I'll get to change his diapers too?" Ada asks between bites, one hand drifting to rest against my belly.
I swallow hard, and like always, I do not make promises I can’t keep. "I hope so, Ada. I really do. Which is exactly why you need to keep eating, so you're strong enough to fight him off my hip the second he's born."
She huffs something close to a laugh and lets me feed her the rest of the bowl—not that there was much in it to begin with; doctors are stingy about portions these days.
It's the most she's eaten in a week. Her eyes drift shut halfway through the last spoonful, soft little puffs of breath following a second later.
Cute. Impossible woman, but cute.
I gather the tray and step out into the hallway, and one of the Bratva women takes it out of my hands immediately.
"Let me carry that, pakhanessa."
"Thank you." I smile.
She hesitates, eyes dropping to the floor. "Could I ask a favor?"
"Look at me first." I've made this rule non-negotiable over the years—no woman in this family walks around with her chin down. "Go ahead."
She lifts her chin. "Pakhan's been shouting at the men again all morning. I think he gets restless whenever it's been a while since he's seen you. Would you mind stopping by the office?"
"Of course." I nod and waddle—there is genuinely no more graceful word for it at eight months pregnant—toward my husband's office.
My handsome, insufferably obsessive husband.
I knock, and he barks "Come in" through the door. The second he sees me, though, his face lights up.
"You know you never have to knock, little butterfly." He's already pushing back from the desk.
I cross the room anyway and let him press a kiss to the swell of my belly, the way he does every single time he sees me.
"Heard you've been terrorizing the men again."
"Who ratted me out?" he grumbles, and I bite back a laugh.
"I'll never tell."
He rolls his chair back from the desk and pulls me down onto his lap.
"I get restless without you," he admits.
"I know." I settle into him.
"What would I have ever done if I hadn't bound your wings that first night, my butterfly? What would I have done if you'd actually flown off somewhere I couldn't follow?"
I raise a brow at him. "As if you’d let that ever be a possibility."
He kisses me.
"I can't wait to meet my son," he murmurs against my mouth.
"Me neither."
"I hope he's not as much of a menace as Ilya and Inez's boy. Or as spoiled rotten as Luna," he grumbles.
I roll my eyes, because that man is absolutely obsessed with both my niece and nephew. Yes—all three of us ended up Bratva wives in the end. Me, Inez, and even our other sister. Funny how that worked out.
It took four years for me and Slava to conceive. The Bratva needed an heir, and we both wanted a mini version of us roaming around. And in four years, not once—not a single time—did he ever make me feel like less for it.
He always told me, if it happens, it happens. All he ever wanted was me. Nothing about that was ever going to change, heir or no heir.
And then, the month after we finally stopped trying so hard, it happened.
I still don't fully believe it some mornings.
"You love them," I tease, tracing a finger along his jaw.
"You'll never be able to prove it."
I laugh, snuggling up to him.
I'm home. Somehow, impossibly, after everything, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.